A precursor to Lynch’s Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive, Blue Velvet sets a template for ethereal noir soundtracks in a modern, quite disturbed age. “The shock of the new fades by definition, but it has hardly done so in the case of Blue Velvet.” Dennis Lim, Salon, 2016

"The haunting soundtrack accompanies the title credits, then weaves through the narrative, accentuating the noir mood of the film." - John Alexander, The British Film Resource

You know that feeling you get when you’re shook awake in mid-dream? You were teetering on the ledge of a building, or maybe trying to free a butterfly from a spider web while wearing cricket gloves? Perhaps you’re running late for a train and your short cut takes you through a bad part of town, you’re being followed but the ever changing reflection in the shop window is a younger you, a healthier person – with a better hairstyle. It’s an anxiety thing, an off-kilter almost world, best summed up on the soundtrack for Blue Velvet, David Lynch’s 1986 film that nods somnambulantly to the shadowy netherworld of film noir.

Oedipal fantasies, finding a severed ear on your way home, voyeurism, crime and retribution, violence; they’re all there in abundance in the movie, a rotten sleazy commercialism set off against a set of strange situations that the edge of the seat is never far away from. And what soundtrack would suit such an experience? Of course a mix of orchestral pieces from composer and conductor Angelo Badalamenti inspired by Shoshtakovich’s 15th Symphony (which rumour has it Lynch played onset to create the ‘mood’) mixed up with trashy Hammond-led boogie and overblown baroque pop from Roy Orbison and Ketty Lester, suitable for any dive’s jukebox.

That awkward mix plays itself out in Isabella Rossellini as Dorothy’s rendition of the song ‘Blue Velvet’ that melds beautifully and indeed hauntingly into ‘Blue Star’, a broken piece of vintage pop. Similarly, the track ‘Going Down To Lincoln’ with its narrative audio shtick takes all of the previously-mused elements to create a perfectly disjointed travelogue. The soundtrack album starts with Bernard Hermann-styled Hitchcock-esque strings and violin slashes, which dally before deconstructing the themes and motifs into a disturbing procession that climaxes with Julee Cruise’s funereal ‘Mysteries Of Love’, a fittingly titled epilogue to an epic that concludes with the hero’s true love’s reality of a simplistic birdsong dream from earlier in the film.

It’s a cyclical trip that feeds directly back to the beginning and, yes, there’s that severed ear again, now ant infested laying on the ground, proving that dreams become real, or is it reality that becomes a dream?

Remastered by Bob Weston and featuring new liner notes by MAGNET magazine editor Eric Miller, physical copies of Vee Vee includes sixteen bonus tracks and new cover art re-imagined by graphic artist Jay Ryan. Reissues of All the Nation's Airports and White Trash Heroes followed later in 2012.

The first full-length produced by Bob Weston, Vee Vee was a slight departure from the previous bombastic noisepop that characterized Archers of Loaf's previous work, and it proved that the band wasn't just a flash in the pan. The album became their best-selling album to date and landed them on the covers of most fanzines and at the top of college radio charts across the country. "Harnessed in Slums" and "Greatest of All Time" became anthems of the underground and led to successful tours with the Flaming Lips and Weezer.

CD 1:1. Step into the Light2. Harnessed in Slums3. Nevermind the Enemy4. Greatest of All Time5. Underdogs of Nipomo6. Floating Friends7. 19858. Fabricoh9. Nostalgia10. Let the Loser Melt11. Death in the Park12. The Worst Has Yet to Come13. Underachievers March and Fight Song

New Zealand/New York City legends Bailterspace, offer up their best album to date with their first new recordings in 13 years. The band were once described by Pitchfork as "simultaneously beautiful, jagged, atonal, and supremely melodic" and 'Strobosphere' emerges at a time when the band's trailblazing sound has never been more relevant.

Revered as one of the loudest and most intense live bands of all-time, they haven't lost any of their bite or their love of tone, dissonance, and melody. The first single "No Sense" darts, snaps and swirls with alternating snare cracks, atmospheric surges and dirty buzz, featuring Parker's distinctive vocals.

'Peace on Venus' by Philadelphia's foremost purveyors of psychedelic rock, Bardo Pond. Delving deep in to their subconscious to bring it to the conscious, the band again dazzle us with their gift for heavy riffs laced with soaring vocals and swathes of sound.

The recording process of 'Peace On Venus' used the principle of the Quintessence, which is a principle cited by the 16th Century physician Paracelsus, who noted: "Nothing of true value is located in the body of a substance, but in the virtue thereof, and this is the principle of theQuintessence, which reduces, say 20 lbs. of a given substance into a single Ounce, and that ounce far exceeds the 20 lbs. in potency. Hence the less there is of body, the more in proportion is the virtue thereof."

“Blank Realm are still bent on mixing the diamonds with the rough, and on Grassed Inn that particular swirl is at its most intoxicating.” Pitchfork 8/10

“Balancing the arty with the party to make for a set of danceable, hook-filled songs that bubble and bloom with an almost biological rampancy, shooting out tendrils of strange, snaking melody in every direction like vines enveloping a ruin” Guardian 4*

Blank Realm's transformation across the Australian mystic from sprawling spaced out psychotic punk blues, through the startling maverick pop psychedelia of ‘Go Easy’ to the widely acclaimed ‘Grassed Inn’, continues in its unrelenting quest for that quintessential synergy of chiming pop anthems.

Hook-laden throughout they unleash their wild yet tender new album ‘Illegals In Heaven’ which offers up freaked out reflections on life, love and circumstance. As knowing as the Chills or the Pretenders, loner ballads are as gnarled and world weary as Dylan in a cacophony as bruised as Royal Trux yet with the playfulness of Half Japanese.

Recorded and produced with Lawrence English (head of the Room40 label) on a late night at The Plutonium studio in Brisbane, the album sees them on their first foray into a recording studio. While it wasn’t exactly Abbey Road, it truly captures the chaos and majesty of the band’s formidable live shows.It would be all too easy to say that ‘Illegals In Heaven’ is their finest work to date, but the simple truth is that Blank Realm have been without peers for a trilogy of albums, so it just might be as Sarah huskily intones, "Gold" too.

Tracklisting:1. No Views On It2. River Of Longing3. Cruel Night4. Costume Drama5. Dream Date 6. Flowers In Mind7. Gold 8. Palace Of Love9. Too Late Now

"I can't tune shit, I couldn't tune a one string bass dick, but luckily they do it for me, not the bass dick, the guitar."- the one and only Dave Cloud

Recorded at the Memphis, Tennessee hallowed ground that is the annual Gonerfest, Mr. Cloud and his armed gang of musical assassins tear through their set in ways that only they can. Delivering a blistering, funny, caustic, confrontational, warts and all performance; they unabashedly pour cases of beer over the carcass of rock and roll. Capturing their fragmented glory, the end result leaves a rabid and dazed audience praying at their alter while the half-naked frontman tries to determine where he left his shirt and pants. In other words, a typical Dave Cloud and the Gospel of Power live set.

Dave Cloud is a Nashville icon, pure and simple as that. Over two decades of thrilling the locals with his incendiary shows, he has been praised all over the globe for his tales of motorcycles and money, nudist camps, siberian hypnotism, and girls girls girls. Joined by various members of Lambchop and Silver Jews, his status as a treasured outsider on the fringes of American alt-blues is encased in solid gold. He is an artist that should be experienced, and we have done just that with this release, transporting him straight through your ears and directly to your brain. Feel the fever setting in?

“California Owls” could almost be Beach House. At least until it descends into a two-minute cascade of bird noises. Enchanting stuff.” Loud & Quiet / “Nilsson’s vocals bob in an ocean of reverb on ‘California Owls’ evoke everything from Czech cinema soundtracks to The Velvet Underground channelled through their uniquely distorted lens” Clash

“California Owls,” a tidy three and a half minutes of airy-pop gorgeousness followed by two more combining chirping birds and tones reminiscent of a distant calliope amidst the reliable retro-futurism.” The Vinyl District

Following the success of their critically acclaimed ‘To Where The Wild Things Are’ released in May, Death And Vanilla return with EP ‘California Owls’ EP, featuring two non-album tracks. Forming in Malmö, Sweden by Marleen Nilsson and Anders Hansson, Death and Vanilla utilise vintage musical equipment such as vibraphone, organ, mellotron, tremolo guitar and moog, to emulate the sounds of 60s/70s soundtracks, library music, German Krautrock, French Ye-ye pop and 60s psych. They revel in the warmth of older analogue instruments to create a more organic sound, each loose wire and off-kilter noise adding to the rich atmosphere.

Creating deliciously enticing soundscapes, full of moody moogs and breathless vocals, their influences are as diverse as their music. Passionate about the culture of the 60s/70s, Death And Vanilla have the retro-futuristic edge of Broadcast with Stereolab leanings and the electronic library sounds of the BBC Electronic Workshop. Opulent and timeless, ‘California Owls’ is a reverb soaked spectral-pop song drenched in 60s-psych while the dark and swirling melodies of ‘Follow The Light’ has a ‘Walk Away Renee pace’ (Guardian).

Their new EP brings together old songs with the new, much like the samples and the instruments they use, whilst capturing the haunting and wild dreamy experimental edge of ‘To Where The Wild Things Are’.

2 vinyl editions, one blue one orange both on 160 gm vinyl, both include downloads.

Whether their muse lies in 60s sci-fi soundtracks, The Radiophonic Workshop, the prototype electronic sounds of The United States Of America, the retro-futuristic edge of Broadcast, the dream pop ambience of Angelo Badalamenti/Julie Cruise, or the shimmering shroud of Mazzy Star, will doubtless be raised in countless interviews.

But what matters more is that Death And Vanilla have woven a stunning tapestry that envelops all that preceded them, into a literally head-turning album, of kaleidoscopic proportions... Formed in Malmö, Sweden by Marleen Nilsson and Anders Hansson, Death and Vanilla utilise vintage musical equipment such as vibraphone, organ, mellotron, tremolo guitar and moog, to emulate the sounds of 60s/70s soundtracks, library music, German Krautrock, French Ye-ye pop and 60s psych.

They revel in the warmth of older analogue instruments to create a more organic sound, each loose wire and off-kilter noise adding to the rich atmosphere. After a handful of successful releases including a debut EP in 2010, their self-titled LP in 2012 – which sold out on pre-order – and a beautifully designed 7” single, the experimental pop duo were invited to compose a live soundtrack for the classic horror film, Vampyr (1932), for the Lund Fantastisk Film festival in Lund. Now, newly signed to Fire, the band return with ‘To Where The Wild Things Are.’

Named after the Maurice Sendak children’s book, the album is comprised of pop music with a wild, dreamy and experimental edge, celebrating imagination and the ability to travel to stranger recesses of the mind. ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ starts off with some of the most “pop” songs they’ve ever recorded, typified in the sweet and melodramatic “Arcana”, and the classic pop inspired “Time Travel”. Like Sendak’s book of the same name, the album then proceeds into stranger and stranger territory, resulting in some of the most experimental material Death and Vanilla have produced, such as the six minute “Something Unknown You Need to Know” and the machine-like, surf-guitar track “The Hidden Reverse”.

The band recorded the new album themselves in their rehearsal space, using just one microphone – a 70’s Sennheiser – which they bought at a flea market for a tenner. It is this unconventional recording process that gives Death and Vanilla their unique personality; using a trial and error approach to recording has rewarded the album with a strangeness that would not have otherwise been achievable.

Creating deliciously enticing soundscapes, full of moody moogs, swirling melodies and breathless vocals, their influences on ‘To Where the Wild Things Are’ are apparent and diverse, ranging from Ennio Morricone to Scott Walker, Tom Dissevelt to Norman Whitfield, The Zombies to Sun Ra, and Bo Hansson to The BBC Radiophonic workshop.

“Death and Vanilla’s sound is like an elaborate dreamscape composed of foggy visions and mind-altering notions.” Redefine Magazine

“Death And Vanilla are a Swedish haunted-pop duo who have found themselves caught in the vortex of retro-futurism circa 1969… they've got a good grip on the baroque psychedelia of the United States Of America and Free Design,” Aquarius Records

Recorded and broadcast way back when, an actual back yard barbeque Nick Hill had set up live on air at the radio station, WFMU. watermelon and everything...

This BBQ record nicely captures the sweetness of the season when Giant Sand were turning into something else. Nick Hill, An old buddy from Brooklyn, had an important radio show there as well as harbouring tremendously good taste. Once when the odds were tremendously against Howe making a plane outa NY on time, he turned the car around and fetched a 2 man kayak. They went kayaking in the Hudson river instead. "Have you ever seen New York city from a kayak? nothing but stunning. And wonderfully spooky, zipping under those giant rotting piers too. That was Nick Hill." He was the fellow responsible for presenting this record and getting it recorded and broadcasted way back when.

This collection of songs was recorded by WFMU over two live sessions for 'The Music Faucet' show in the summer of 1994 and 1995. This 25th anniversary reissue CD also features two bonus tracks, 'Yer Ropes' and 'Rolling Stones I Am' which featured originally as a not so 'secret track'.

"Giant Sand is a mood," says Howe' of Giant Sand, as if trying to oer a low-key explanation for his dizzying array of artistic exploration that includes a back-catalogue of some 40 albums as a singer, band-leader and producer. After growing up in Pennsylvania in the 1970's, it wasn't until he moved to Tuscon, Arizona that he met his musical soul mate,the guitarist Rainer Ptaceck. The two formed Giant Sandworms and issued only a handful of recordings before the worms were put to rest: since then, Giant Sand have released 24 albums - an impressive haul when considering Howe's equally prolic output under other projects including Black Ranchette and Arizona Amp & Alternator as well as his solo releases.

Fire Records re-issues the rare and regarded 'Black Out' recording from 1993. Forged from the embers of the recording session which was 'Purge & Slouch' , and wholly acoustic, this collection of takes was originally released only in Germany. 'Black Out' sits proudly amidst the Giant Sand re-issue project.

"When we gathered for the grand experiment of 'purge & slouch" Howe Gelb recalls, "the idea of which was to record without having written anything prior for it . Some actual songs did pop out , perhaps for the sake of warm-up or while mics were being wired .. maybe just for the sake of vigorous deployment .. re-living some old songs there and then, we bundled em up after the fact for what would become "stromausfall" instead."

"This was a limited batch release on a small german label who took my original title "black out" and translated it .. the idea being that this is the sound that would happen during one .. songs without electricity attached". Since then, most of that original pressing made in germany has mysteriously self destructed so it is with pleasure we havethe opportunity to release the album again, including a bonus piano track for when the city goes dark.

"Giant Sand is a mood," says Howe' of Giant Sand, as if trying to oer a low-key explanation for his dizzying array of artistic exploration that includes a back-catalogue of some 40 albums as a singer, band-leader and producer. After growing up in Pennsylvania in the 1970's, it wasn't until he moved to Tuscon, Arizona that he met his musical soul mate, the guitarist Rainer Ptaceck. The two formed Giant Sandworms and issued only a handful of recordings before the worms were put to rest: since then, Giant Sand have released 24 albums - an impressive haul when considering Howe's equally prolic output under other projects including Black Ranchette and Arizona Amp & Alternator as well as his solo releases.

Inaccurately yet affectionately dubbed the Godfather of Alt. Country by the British press, Tucson, Arizona-based musician Howe Gelb has remained the sole epicenter and creative force behind the ever-fluid configurations of Giant Sand for over a quarter century. 2010 marks the 25th anniversary of the bands 1985 debut long player "Valley Of Rain" - the point in which Howes music visions began - and will see the release of the complete works of Giant Sand, Howe Gelb, Arizona Amp and The Bands Of Blacky Ranchette a collection of works that maintains its own genre-defying singularity drawing on the not-so disparate threads of his south western roots, lo-fi, country, jazz, and punk ... "Giant Sand is a mood," explained Howe, as if to simplify the dizzying breadth of his prolific output as an artist.

2010 will also welcome the release of the new Giant Sand record "Blurry Blue Mountain" the follow up to the bands critically acclaimed 2008 album "ProVisions"

"These recordings were done in the space between the waking world and the sleeping one. there exists a point there with a broad landscape that has seldom been loitered in. as with every previous album, none of this was planned. every record has its own atmosphere. for me they are always a new place to live in and spend some time before moving on. On this album, it happened that every session we were able to record came between work loads that rendered us at that point of sleeping and waking. like the poppy fields in wizard of oz, we went in and out of consciousness at various times during recording. This is not a bad thing. nor does it make the record sound like we're asleep. it has the momentum of that place between sleep and being awake. and in that narrow slip of existence lies a landscape of reason that most of us hurry past in daily lives. this record is planted firmly there"

"Between the crystal clear focus of your day to day and the luxury of sweet fuzzy sleep, we welcome you to the blurry blue mountain".

'Center Of The Universe', originally released in 1992, is the eighth Giant Sand reissue in the series from Fire Records.

Howe holds 'Center Of The Universe' close to his heart, explaining the record ,"Could be my favourite. .. written in a one room cabin at the end of the road in the high desert around Joshua tree where I lived for a few years ... recorded back in Venice, California with the same slant as was instilled in the writing ... adorned with the 'psycho sisters' who show where the melodies in these songs were hiding ... now through the miracle of remastering, these tracks sound more vibrant and alluring".

What was a common approach to record making for Howe and Giant Sand, 'Center Of The Universe' would be the last of a kind, "it marks the last time I could work like this, before the advent of family life was to take over and populate the day .. this record marks the final time of isolation with a happy careless abandon and an immediate urgency delivered by a wired up acoustic guitar with stomp box distortion ready and willing".

"The experiment: to record a vocal in fragments while intentionally singing differently each time on the same song, then combining the takes instantaneously . The result was "loretta and the insect world".

"Giant Sand is a mood", says Howe of Giant Sand, as if trying to offer a low-key explanation for his dizzying array of artistic exploration that includes a back-catalogue of some 40 albums as a singer, band-leader and producer. After growing up in Pennsylvania in the 1970s, it wasnt until he moved to Tuscon, Arizona that he met his musical soul mate, the guitarist Rainer Ptaceck. The two formed Giant Sandworms and issued only a handful of recordings before the worms were put to rest: since then, Giant Sand have released 24 albums - an impressive haul when considering Howes equally prolific output under other projects including Black Ranchette and Arizona Amp & Alternator as well as his solo releases.

Realised through tragic circumstances, the passing of Rainer Ptacek and the birth of Calexico, it all came together at the end for Giant Sand. Arguably Giant Sand's finest album, the fruits of an astounding story and the mesmerising high point of the 25th anniversary reissue series.

'Chore of Enchantment' is released with a second disc of recordings from the time which was to be become 'The Rock Opera Years (Chore Bonus CD)', with all tracks except 'Music Arcade' produced by John Parish.

2002's 'Cover Magazine' is a much less cryptic, typically literal title for one of Giant Sand's lighter alternative offerings. A collection of covers which says as much about Howe Gelb's personal musical taste as it does the friends he has made on his musical journey. Being in the fortunate position of looking back on Giant Sand's output with the 25th Anniversary reissue series, we are able to see the influences which have shaped the existence of the band at each turn and chapter. Neil Young, Johnny Cash, Nick Cave and of course Rainer Ptacek have all made an impression and the tables are turned as Giant Sand give thanks with renditions of Young's' Out on The Weekend', Cash's 'I'm leaving now' and Rainer's touching 'The Inner Flame'. More contemporary takes on PJ Harvey and Goldfrapp show Giant Sand are forever keen and willing to listen.

With Giant Sand's clattering percussion and Howe's meandering vocals, nothing should be assumed before listening. Each track is taken from a new (alternative, strange, weird, interesting, unexpected, intriguing) angle, so surprises are aplenty. A Black Sabbath lounge ballad anyone?

1994's 'Glum' was to be Giant Sand's largest record and in order to make it so, Howe Gelbinvited everyone along to the party. This carnival helped create Giant Sand's best record to date and 'Glum' is now proudly re-issued by Fire.

Howe Gelb explains Glum's story, "This was our best record for a long time. It had Malcolm Burn producing it with me and it was done up at Daniel Lanois' studio in New Orleans.

Since it was our rst big budget session, I tried to get everyone who ever took part on a Giant Sand record to come to Dan's mansion and stay and be on the record somewhere. This made the atmosphere in the house more entangled then it had to be, but seemed like the way it should be. For some reason I began singing like an old man on this record, or maybe was inspired too much from my new talking distortion pedal on my guitar. At the moment this record was due to be released, the label shut down its operations and it got lost. but these things have a life of their own. (I wrote 'faithful' for Marianne, whom I just met through our label rep, kate Hyman. When she heard it she said: "but Howe, where is the melody ?")... and that's the story of my life."